


the irrevocability of them

by perfectingsilence



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Carlos is Human, Carlos-centric, Cecil is Inhuman, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Things Fall Apart - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 07:46:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7258774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectingsilence/pseuds/perfectingsilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As are the swirls in the sky above, so too once were they. Endless and breathtaking, inseparable and indescribable. Of course, with the swirls comes the void, and this they were also. Dark and frightening and beautiful in the way the most tragic things are.</p>
<p>They are nothing if not a beautiful tragedy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the irrevocability of them

**Author's Note:**

> For Allison, who read this for me so I wouldn't be crying alone and then encouraged me to publish it.

“You care more about science than you do me!”

Silence falls over the room like white sheets fall over their skin in the early mornings.

“If that’s what you truly think, then maybe we don’t work as well as I thought,” comes the reply, as bitter as the coffee that stains the other’s mouth.

“Maybe we don’t,” Cecil acquiesces, softer now, a pained little whisper.

Whether or not his accusations are valid, or even where they originate, are not brought up. And maybe that’s what finally ends it; the fact that Cecil so surely believes that something is wrong between them and Carlos doesn’t dispel these beliefs. 

“I can’t do this anymore, Cecil.” Carlos says the words with a finality that scares them both.

“I know,” and he does. It’s written all over his face, in his decreased work performance, the way he’s been holding Cecil differently lately, as though he doesn’t have much longer to.

It all adds up to this, a yelling match in their kitchen when they should be making breakfast together.

-

They make things official on a Thursday. With Cecil’s broadcast, the entire town knows come Friday evening, and the extra attention, while foreign to Carlos, is not unwelcome.

He shifts nervously beneath the stares, which caress him as does the stuffy desert breeze. They are curious, he presumes, as to how they ended up together. It’s too early in their relationship for him to be thinking so, but when Carlos ponders it, he is sure that fate is what’s brought them together. The stars are aligning for him. A scientist in a town where science doesn’t work, in love with a radio host who is not entirely human. As he shifts nervously among aisle seven of the grocery store, he smiles gently. It isn’t what he wanted to be when he was little, but he couldn’t be happier.

Cecil and Carlos, Night Vale’s most talked about couple.

-

Cecil comes home from work one day, scratched and bloody. Murmurs, “Station Management didn’t like the unscheduled report,” and presses his way into the bathroom despite Carlos’ attempts to get him to stay still enough to be looked at properly. The blood never washes out of the rags completely. It’s the first time Carlos has ever hated Night Vale.

-

Cecil knows he’s in love before they’ve even gotten together, and announces this as though he’s declaring the winner to the lottery. While Carlos comes to the same conclusion not far into their relationship, it takes him significantly longer to put his thoughts to words. After all, he’s never been good with them anyways. He’s a man of science. Which is why, as he looks across their table at Cecil, clad in a baggy gray sweatshirt and sipping his coffee, he cannot deny the presence of serotonin and dopamine that flood his system.

“I’m in love with you,” he says, gently, it sudden nature breaking the morning quiet.

Cecil beams. “I’m in love with you, too,” he replies, and brings his coffee mug back up to his lips to take another sip.

Things have never been better.

-

Carlos’ entire frame of existence is based upon the principles of science. And in a town like Night Vale, where those principles do not necessarily apply, he finds it hard to cope. Clocks don’t work, and honestly he’s come to the conclusion that time may not even be real here. His boyfriend is certainly not entirely human, nor are most the citizens here. Nothing is as it should be and it makes everything harder to navigate. When it becomes undeniable that science here is broken, Carlos breaks down too. How can he survive in a place that ignores his rules of existence. Does the lack of these rules negate his existence entirely? He can’t stand the idea of being somewhere where he might not even be real, but it isn’t as though he can leave. Instead, he locks himself in his section of the lab for four days until he can get his watch to work again. It isn’t running on the same time it used to, but it’s telling somewhere’s time, and it’s enough to ease his distress. 

-

They are happy until they aren’t anymore. Somewhere down the line, between the dates and the hand holding and the long nights that mean so much more than they know, somewhere in between it all, there is a shift. The kind of shift that while minuscule, is just enough to alter the ocean’s currents and send a lonely piece of driftwood off course. Make no mistake, they never fall out of love, but somewhere, something shifts, just enough, and sends them off course.

-

Carlos moves out on a Thursday. Loads boxes of his life into his car and moves them back into the space underneath his lab. On his way out the door, he passes through the kitchen, where his eyes pass over a very specific coffee mug, reminding him of a very specific morning. His breath catches in his throat. 

-

One thing that doesn’t change is the radio. Cecil still does his daily broadcast, and like clockwork, Carlos still listens while he does his work. On the radio, Cecil seems happy, though Carlos knows he is not. Still, he is desperate enough to pretend the joy he hears is real. Tries to console himself with the knowledge that they can be happy again, without each other, even if this too is a lie. 

-

No longer does he smile shyly at the looks he gets at the grocery store. Now, he looks down in shame, for he knows that while Cecil has never used his job to say a single bad word about him, most of Night Vale blames him for what happened. He understands; he blames himself, too.

-

He makes sure to leave his softest lab coat behind. It had always been Cecil’s favorite.

-

As much as it surprises him, Night Vale lets him go. The lights overhead the night before swirl as they always do, and Carlos can’t bring himself to even pretend to sleep as he watches them. Old Woman Josie hugs him on the street, whispers that no matter what, she knows that he is a good man. She thanks him for making Cecil happy for all those years, and tells him that she understands what happens when two people can’t make each other happy anymore. It doesn’t surprise him that she knows. 

Regret is one thing that will never leave him. Regret at abandoning the best scientific opportunity he will ever come across within his lifetime. Regret at leaving this town which truly only he can save; a town that while constant, will inevitably fall apart many times over without him. He wonders what will become of those who inhabit the strange desert community. Old Woman Josie and the Angels. The Faceless Old Woman who will no longer live in his home. John Peters, the farmer; Big Rico; even Steve Carlsberg and his family. Carlos wonders what will become of Cecil. If he’ll ever regain the joy that once flooded his voice, ever rekindle the passion he once held for his beloved Night Vale. Wonders if he will continue to be The Voice forever, if he can ever actually quit. Wonders if in another life they could have been happy. The thing Carlos regrets more than anything else is never being able to find out. 

The trees don’t attempt to lure him in as he passes them. He thinks that in the distance, they are crying. On the radio, Cecil’s voice is deep and sure. He’s already left a voicemail for him, a text telling him not to listen to it on air. Their end is one thing that perhaps the citizens of Night Vale do not need to know. Cecil has not checked his phone yet, Carlos is sure, and for that he is glad. He wants his last memories of him to be good ones.

Carlos crosses the line of Night Vale. Over the radio, Cecil’s voice crackles with static and is gone. He cries as he drives, for it is the last time he will ever hear it. 

Carlos leaves on a Thursday.


End file.
